Bayern Munich title-winning machines rolled out on Thursday to play the UEFA Super Cup against the winners of last season’s Europa League, Sevilla, and the German champions conquered in front of 15,180 fans.
The UEFA Super Cup is a one-off match played between the reigning champions of the Europa League and the reigning champions of the UEFA Champions League. This year’s Super Cup took place in 67,000-capacity Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary.
Sevilla gave Bayern Munich a good fight in the first major football match in Europe that allowed fans into the venue since mid-March. Recall that all major football tournaments in Europe have been taking place behind closed doors due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
This has been the situation since mid-March after Liverpool hosted Atletico Madrid in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League round of 16. Even in the finals of the prestigious Champions League final hosted in Portugal and the Europa League final hosted in Germany, the historic matches took place behind closed doors.
But in the Super Cup, UEFA decided to experiment with 15,180 fans in a 67,000-capacity stadium which has enough room for the fans that were allowed into the stadium to watch the match live while maintaining physical distances. For now, the experiment is regarded as successful since there has not been any negative report from it.
Bayern Munich vs Sevilla: The Match proper
With the memory of the 8-2 threshing of FC Barcelona in the quarter-final stage of the Champions League still fresh in the minds of football fans, Bayern Munich faced a very resilient Sevilla side that would not give room for a repeat of such humiliation in a Super Cup final. Hence, the Spanish club ensured that they maintained an organized defense against a high scoring team like Bayern.
In fact, Sevilla that scale through Manchester United and Inter Milla to win the Europa League took the lead against Bayern Munich from the penalty spot. Lucas Ocampos scored a beautiful penalty in the 13th minute.
Afterward, Bayern had to wait until the 34th minute before Leon Goretzka converted Robert Lewandowski’s assist to make it 1-1. After that, Sevilla didn’t give the German Bundesliga champions any chance until the end of the regular 90 minutes.
Bayern had to wait for extra time before they could seal the hard-earned 2-1 victory. Sevilla’s goalkeeper tried all he could to keep the firepower of Bayern Munich at bay but he couldn’t do enough as he watched Javi Martinez head in a rebound from his palms to score the winning goal in the 104th minute of the tensed game.
Hence, Bayern Munich started the 2020-2021 season the same way they ended last season where they won three titles, Champions League, Bundesliga, and DFB-Pokal. The Super Cup they won on Thursday is Bayern Munich’s 4th title in 2020.
Da ist das Ding!!! 😍🏆 #MiaSanChampions #SuperCup pic.twitter.com/T1GSZ68yvi
— FC Bayern München (@FCBayern) September 24, 2020
